I saw it again this week – an extremely disappointed client (Bill) who missed out on a great buy. It was a bank owned house with a listing price just over $97,000. Bill made a full price cash offer and was sure he’d own his dream cabin soon. But the bank received three other offers and came back to each buyer asking for his “highest and best” offer price. We had no idea what the other offers were and Bill was immediately frustrated because “he’d given them exactly what they’d asked for”. I visited with him about his “disappointment price” (we’ll save that for another blog) and he did raise his offer, but not enough to secure his purchase.

Curious, I did some research on bank owned sales. In the first 6 months of 2011 there were 159 homes sold in Valley County. Of the homes sold, 66 (41 percent) were bank owned. Of the 66 bank owned homes, 19 (29 percent) sold for more than the asking price. THAT IS A SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE.!

I’m actually encouraged that selling prices are higher than asking prices on these REO’s. The banks will end up using the higher comparable sales for their listing prices and that means that the market is resetting itself. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.